


Domesticity

by feldman



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Early Work, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-06-30
Updated: 2000-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:18:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1801762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feldman/pseuds/feldman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This home invasion can't be fixed with a good cry and a trip to the Pottery Barn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domesticity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twofrontteethstillcrooked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofrontteethstillcrooked/gifts).



> Improv elements at the end. To Bugs and JET, for the beta and the cheering up. [originally posted to Scullyfic and Gossamer in 2000]

Mulder shifts and settles into a rhythm too engaging to ignore. My pillow hits the floor as I strain against him, sticky and hot like a popsicle melting. He's just a little faster than I am and it's driving me to the edge.

I tell myself it's because he's a man. More muscle mass, therefore a higher oxygen requirement; hence Mulder breathes faster than I do, even in sleep. Simple metabolism, not purposeful sabotage. Still I can't help but fall into his rhythm, hyperventilating myself wide-awake. I've tried everything save for manual strangulation or sleeping on the couch. The former is more tempting than the latter, yet neither is conducive to the harmonious family life we're trying to create.

Mulder burrows into my shoulder blade. The moment he falls asleep he latches on like a parasite, trying to work his way under my skin. Despite sniping at each other all evening, tonight is no different. He'd tossed his share of the blankets onto me earlier, and is now wrapped around me for warmth, pinning me to the edge of the bed.

Will winds up for the first oration of the night, baby monitor lights sparking red like those on a radar detector.

Mulder and I should have lived in sin for a while first. I worm an arm free and shove his hairy thigh off of my hip.

"Sskhhghh..."

With a rocking motion, I flop him off of my back and onto his own. He lands in the middle of the bed. "Your night. Remember?"

"Hmmf...m'kay." He rolls from bed and pads into the hallway, a motion as unconscious and practiced as the hand scratching his scrotum.

The skin of my back feels clammy as I stretch to retrieve my pillow. My home is falling apart around me. Everything used to have its place and now I can't even keep a pillow under my head. A raw patch of stubble burn heats my shoulder, so I turn over, kicking the duvet back into place as Will snuffles to a ragged stop over the speaker.

"S'okay, son, it's warming up. How's the eye, there?" His voice is affectionate and calm.

I can still hear the screeching of earlier this evening, though, high panicky monotone and baby screams reverberating against tile walls. "Ten different kinds of shampoo, Scully, and none of that 'no more tears' crap?"

"Mulder, if you squirt it right in his eye it doesn't matter--"

"Jesus, Scully, you'll believe in God, but not Johnson & Johnson?"

"Well he's got one good eye left, care to convince me?"

Perhaps we need a new rule; no talking to each other when the baby's screaming.

I shape my pillow with my fists. I'm wasting a golden opportunity. I have five ounces of time in which to fall asleep before Mulder comes to bed and resumes his breathing routine. I pretend I'm on stakeout, the murmuring from the baby monitor a police radio at low volume. It's Mulder's watch. I let myself relax.

~*~

Some time later I wake up alone, baby monitor silent and unblinking. Whispered conversation down the hall spikes dread into my temples.

Strangers in the house.

Eventually, I'll have to give up the reassurance of having my gun within reach at the edge of sleep. Then how will I protect him?

Either of them?

I come to my senses in the empty nursery. The whispering is coming from the living room, a mix of raspy Mulder voice and cartoons turned down low. Happy animals on the crib mobile hang taxidermy still, witnessing me.

I feel sweaty and monstrous. What the hell am I thinking? Starting tomorrow I lock up the gun. If nothing else is in its place, at least this. I exchange weapon for robe and follow Mulder's voice into the living room.

He sits on the couch, slouching with one hand on the remote, the other cupping Will's round little belly like a cockpit harness. He's murmuring in the warm hypnogogic voice of so many insomniac phone calls, a running commentary on the exploits of the green alien boy on TV. Will seems pleased and dubious.

A baby bottle nonchalantly shares the end table with my French press coffeepot, each half-full.

"Speaking of alien-hunters, looks like we woke up your mom."

I sit on the edge of the couch. "Mulder, where did you find the kaffeeklatsch pot?"

"Come again?"

"The coffeepot, Mulder."

"I just thought it'd be quieter than the espresso machine." His fingers creep from the mute button to my hand. "Are you okay, Scully? I promise I'll clean it out when I'm done."

"It's not that." I shake my head. Of course he doesn't know about the kaffeeklatsch pot. "I haven't seen it since Melissa was killed. We used to meet every week and have a good long talk over coffee."

"Sounds ritualistic." His thumb traces the back of my hand, belying the light remark.

"In a way, I guess it was." I sink into the cushions. "When I finished school, she wanted to connect with me. Get to know me better. I was still unpacking, I was busy with a new job. I suggested we meet for coffee sometime. She showed up an hour later with that plunge pot wrapped up as a housewarming gift. Made me promise we'd meet for a kaffeeklatsch every week."

His eyes kaleidoscope empathy and pain in reflected cartoon colors. "Listen, I didn't know it had sentimental value. I'll put it back."

"No, Mulder, it's been missing. I just want to know where you found it."

"Top cabinet over the sink, pushed way back. Scully...are you laughing or crying?"

I wipe my cheek and let a chuckle loose. "Mom always kept the tea and coffee things over the sink, wherever we lived. Everyone else could reach, even Charlie, but I'd have to drag the kitchen stool over or climb onto the sink. Missy must have cleaned up the last time, and just put it away without thinking."

"So you're laughing *and* crying."

"Essentially." The green alien boy is at school, declaiming silently. Will whimpers and plucks at Mulder's thumb, restarting the belly rub that I'd interrupted. "He should be sleeping. He'll do poorly in kindergarten if we let him become nocturnal."

Mulder brushes Will's hair front to back, rubbing silky locks between his fingers. "He fusses every time I try to put him down, but he's not interested in eating."

"Temperature?"

"Normal. I think he just wants to spoon for a while." Satisfied between head and tummy rubbing, Will stares at the TV with an intense Orson Wellesian expression. "He seems to have forgiven me for the shampoo incident."

"Long term memory doesn't develop until at least eighteen months. I'm sure that helps."

"So we've got a grace period of a sort." Will kicks a leg out, farts, then sighs. Mulder laughs. "Infancy is kind of like senility in reverse, isn't it?"

"You're the psychologist." Will's flexing his toes contently, so familiar that I can't help but look down at Mulder's feet.

"Babies aren't my specialty. Though, maybe when he starts on solid foods he'll become a cereal murderer...get it? Cereal?" Big toes and little toes wave like can-can dancers, joyous in miniature and life-size.

So easily, I'd slipped into treating the miraculous as mundane. Technically, neither of the people sharing this couch with me should exist. One was as dead as my sister, the other literally inconceivable. Yet here they are, trashing my house and filling my life with petty annoyances.

I'd forgotten what family is all about, apparently.

"Mulder." I tear him away from the alien boy, now zipping his robot into a dog costume and taking him for a walk. "Does it ever strike you as weird, with all the things we've done, to end up here on the couch like this?"

"What, with you sitting on the driver's side?" He smiles and pulls me closer.

I lean against his shoulder and look up at his sleepy stubbly face. The puncture wounds have healed completely, but a legacy of ingrown hairs traces them out to knowing eyes. He smells of baby powder, coffee and my bed.

"Yeah, sometimes it's weird. But we're the King and Queen of Weird, Scully, we can handle a little domesticity. It'll give us something to talk about with the straights."

**Author's Note:**

> Improv elements:
> 
> *Cyndi Jo: Somebody watching and commenting on "Invader Zim"  
> *Triton: Any character tossing and turning all night, trying to get to sleep, trying hard to get images of throttling someone else out of their head.  
> *JET: a beloved coffeepot  
> *Melymbrosia: Someone managing to squirt shampoo straight into their left eye.  
> *Pequod: M or S throwing things out when they come across something of sentimental value-(I) decide what it is and the story behind it.


End file.
